【推荐1】Twenty years ago, I was invited to join a poker game made up of all middle-aged men. That game became an essential part of my life and it evolved with the group. We used to start at 7 p. m. with wine and play until 2 a. m. Now there is no wine, and we quit before midnight. The smoke of cigarettes is long gone. The food is better—over two decades we’ve gone from chips to homemade vegetable salad. All of these win favor with my wife when I go to play poker.

When the pandemic (疫情) arrived, we switched to online games. We downloaded a poker app on our phones and looked at those nine boxes containing our heads on our computer screens. The app dealt with all nine players at the same time, so the online version was much faster. Despite the efficiency, the app presented problems. It took all our concentration to keep track, on multiple screens, of what was going on with the game. The conversation didn’t really happen. It felt like any online poker game, the kind played with strangers. So I hated this way of playing.

When we finally met each other for our live game after a two-year break, we were excited. However, at our poker game, we learned one of our guys died of cancer without telling any of us he was sick. Actually, we once found Bert looked a bit thin and a bit tired. Then he was gone. According to Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at Oxford University, men are less likely to discuss their personal affairs and opinions directly and honestly. It’s the reason why men are more likely to have mental problems.

So friendships with women are the perfect complement to male friendships. I have a wife to confide in (向……透露秘密), and a few female friends I regularly meet for lunch. I’m just really glad to have both types of friendships. I can meet my female friends for a nice lunch and a glass of wine. Then head off to poker.

【推荐2】Imagine mountains enveloped in silver water, shining in the spring sun. Summer sees the mountains turn bright green with growing rice. During autumn, these mountains are gold, and in winter they are covered with white frost.     1    

These terraces (梯田) were built by the local Zhuang and Yao people. Starting in the Yuan Dynasty, work on the terraces took hundreds of years.     2     Reaching as far as the eye can see, these terraces cover tall mountains, often from the bottom to the very top.

    3     Firstly, there are few large flat areas of land in the region. Building the terraces could increase the areas to grow rice. Secondly, although the region has plenty of rain, the mountains are steep (陡峭) and the soil is shallow. The fat terraces help catch the rainwater and prevent the soil from being washed away.

But perhaps the most important is the way people have worked in peace with nature. The terraces are cleverly designed, with hundreds of waterways connecting with each other. During the rainy season, rainwater moves down the mountains and into the terraces along these waterways. The sun heats the water and turns it into vapour (水蒸气).     4     These terraces also provide a perfect environment for birds and fish, some of which feed on insects harmful to crops.

Although modern technology helps produce more crops, these terraces still mean a lot to the local people for whom traditions hold much value.     5     Thus, new generations continue to use ancient methods of agriculture to maintain the terraces. Today, the Longji Rice Terraces attract thousands of visitors to admire this great wonder created by people and nature working together.

【推荐3】Think back to your first memory. How old were you at the time? Chances are you can’t remember anything earlier than kindergarten or primary school — nothing about your first words, steps, or solid food other than what your parents have later told you. This phenomenon is called “infantile amnesia”, due to which the majority of adults rarely remember things that happen to them before the age of three.

So why is it that we can’t remember being a baby? The answer lies in the way that our brain’s ability to store memories changes as we grow. At birth, a baby’s brain is only a quarter of its adult size, growing to three-quarters the size of an adult brain by age two. This increase is associated with a growth in the number of brain cells — called neurons (神经元) — and the connections between these cells.

A part of the brain that is particularly important in forming memories is the hippocampus (海马体), says Dr Dhanisha Jhaveri, a researcher at The University of Queensland. This region stores autobiographical memories from specific events in our lives. “In the hippocampus, new neurons are constantly being created. In adulthood, new cells are still being produced, but the rate of production in the hippocampus slows down,” says Dr Jhaveri.

Neuroscientists believe that the rapid rate at which brain cells are being produced in childhood could be the cause of infantile amnesia. Because so many new neurons are being produced and form connections with each other in memory circuits, they might disrupt (扰乱) existing networks of memories that have already formed.

Despite this memory loss, childhood experiences have been found to influence adult behaviour years later, which suggests that traces of these memories could be stored somewhere in the brain that isn’t easy to access.

In research in animals, scientists have found that latent (潜在的) traces of early experiences remain in the brain for a long time, and can later be triggered (触发) by a reminder. It highlights the important influence of early life experiences on mental and emotional well-being later in life.

【推荐1】Many previous studies have indicated that frequent walking was associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes (糖尿病) in the general population, in a way that those with more time spent walking per day were at a lower risk. But their findings haven’t offered much guidance on the best habitual walking speed needed to lower diabetes risk.

A new study’s authors reviewed 10 previous studies conducted between 1999 and 2022, which assessed (评估) the links between walking speed and the development of type 2 diabetes among adults from the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. After a follow-up period of eight years on average, compared with those who took easy or casual (休闲的) walking(less than 2 miles per hour), those who walked at an average or normal pace (2 to 3 miles per hour)had a 15% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the researchers found. Walking at a “fairly quick” pace (3 to 4 miles per hour)meant a 24% lower risk than those who easily or casually walked. And quick walking(more than 4 miles per hour)had the biggest benefit: a 39%reduction in risk.

The overall message is that walking is an important way to improve your health. It may be true that walking faster is even better. But given the fact that most Americans do not get sufficient walking in the first place, it is most important to encourage people to walk more as they’re able to.

If you want to challenge yourself, however, using a fitness tracker—via a watch or smartphone app—can help you measure and maintain your walking pace, experts said. If you can’t get a fitness tracker, an easy alternative for tracking exercise intensity (强度) is the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “talk test”, which relies on understanding how physical activity affects heart rate and breathing. If, while walking, you’re able to talk in a labored voice but not sing, your pace is probably quick.

【推荐3】The “Middle Ages” refers to a duration of 1,000 years, stretching from the fall of Rome in the 5th century to the Italian renaissance in the 15th. Traditionally, the term refers specifically to Europe. And there are many stories, which are more fiction than reality, about the Europe of that time.

One misunderstanding is that people in the Middle Ages were all ignorant and uneducated. For example, a 19th century biography of Christopher Columbus incorrectly claimed that the Europeans at that time thought the Earth was flat. Sure, many scholars of that period described the Earth as the center of the universe – but there wasn’t much debate as to its shape. A popular 13th century text was literally called “On the Sphere of the World.” And the number of people who had an access to books gradually increased alongside the establishment of universities. Ancient knowledge was also not “lost”; Greek and Roman texts continued to be studied.

And it is the same with knights (骑士). In the 19th century, some Romantic European nationalist thinkers well-romanticized the Middle Ages. In their description of the societies, they emphasized the narrations of chivalry (骑士精神) and wonder. But knights played minimum roles in those days’ warfare. The fights, the duels, the adventures and the beautiful ladies are most probably but legends.

Meanwhile, the 19th century French historian Jules Michelet referred to the Middle Ages as “a thousand years without a bath”. But even small towns were equipped with well-used public bathhouses. People even bathed with soaps made of things like animal fat, ash, and scented herbs. And they used mouthwash, teeth-scrubbing cloths with pastes and powders, and spices and herbs for fresh-smelling breath.

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